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American fighter for Taliban visited

MAZAR-e-SHARIF, Afghani-stan -- Red Cross officials said on Wednesday that they had paid two visits in Afghanistan to John Walker Lindh, the American captured with the Taliban last week, and had taken a letter from him to carry to his family.

Red Cross officials said the visits, somewhere inside the country, were hindered by the presence of American soldiers, who have Walker in custody. Red Cross officials said they would seek to see Walker, whom they consider a prisoner of war, without the soldiers present.

Under the Geneva Conventions of 1949, prisoners of war are entitled to be visited by international monitors in a private setting.

A U.S. Army spokesman said the Army intended to take Walker out of Afghanistan as soon as possible. "Our biggest concern is that he stays alive," the spokesman said. "Someone may take action against him."

Businessman says sheik sought missiles

BERLIN -- German authorities are investigating claims by a businessman that he was approached by a Saudi sheik seeking to procure missiles and potentially dangerous substances for associates of Osama bin Laden, a spokesman said Wednesday.

Juergen Stoltenow, a spokesman for Germany's Federal Criminal Office, said authorities questioned the German businessman in October and that an investigation was under way. He declined to provide further details.

But in an interview published Wednesday in the German news magazine Stern, the unnamed businessman said he met several times with a Saudi named Hassan Enany. During a 1993 meeting, Enany allegedly inquired about missiles, biological and chemical substances he said were intended for Arab friends with connections to bin Laden, the prime suspect in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

The unnamed businessman told Stern that he met Enany in London, the Spanish resort town of Marbella and elsewhere and that he gave Enany documents about Russian missile systems and how to obtain them.

Pakistanis arrest 23 who sneaked in

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- Pakistani authorities arrested 23 Arabs, including two children, suspected of links to Osama bin Laden, officials said Wednesday. All of them sneaked into the country from Afghanistan in recent weeks.

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The suspects include three women, identified as Aamni Ahmad, Hala Ahmad and Nooran Abdu, who are believed to be relatives of bin Laden. An interior ministry official who spoke on condition of anonymity said the arrests were made in Pakistan's southwestern Baluchistan province.

Most of the other suspects were identified as Yemenis and Saudis, the official said, adding that some of them could be related to one of bin Laden's four wives.